Tag: animals

Dogs

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite animals?
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I am never happier as a writer than when I have canine companionship. I’m sure I will eventually get a dog of my own, but right now I lean on my dad’s for support. They’ll be there when I go to visit for Thanksgiving, and I’m sure I will have many writing sessions with two little potatoes warming my feet.

I like other animals, too, of course. I have owned cats, and once, a parakeet named Herbert Birdsfoot.

But there’s something about the love of a dog, and I cannot wait to get back into the rhythm of owning one. I write differently when there’s a dog in the room, because all of the sudden, writing is not lonely. There is someone there to hear my frustrations and exclamations, emphasizing a point with a yawn.

I type slower when a dog is in the room because I have to take breaks for pets.

Sometimes, there are tears on my face that need to be licked away, and dogs are good for that.

It would be nice to have a dog right now as I’m dealing with a lot of loneliness, but I’d have to board them while I was away. It’s not worth going to the SPCA just yet. But eventually I will, and I’ll spend time picking out a puppy.

The dog would teach me a lot more than I could teach it, that’s for sure. Dogs are a study in consistency, and having the structure of a dog would round out my life quite a bit. Walks twice a day, etc. Plus, if I was walking my dog I would talk to more people in my apartment complex. I’m not even trying to talk myself into it now, it’s just true. When you walk a dog around an apartment complex, they get attention and you get to come with it.

I know from experience that having a dog in the car makes it feel like you’re not going anywhere alone. I could use that kind of safety and security. I could also use the feeling of being in a pack. It is not happening with friends quickly, because adult friendship is hard to schedule. So, adopting a buddy sounds like the perfect antidote to a bit of loneliness.

But again, it won’t happen fast because I like to travel. It’s just something to think about for the new year. I have time and space to be able to dedicate to a puppy.

I also feel affinities for giraffes and elephants, but they don’t make them small enough for the public to adopt. 😉

Becoming a Lanagan

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What is good about having a pet?
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The best part about having a pet is how it learns to reflect me. I have had both dogs and cats over my lifetime, and I love that they have all mirrored me in terms of energy and engagement.

Well, Asher was not as much like me. She was a grumpy old lady who liked to stick one claw up my nose at 5:30 AM to remind me to wake up. There is no snooze button on that one.

Right now, I do not have any pets. I would like that to change in the future, but I need to assess how much money I have in the budget. I need a service dog to help me around town, but I need one less now that I have a car and don’t have to walk outside. I would be perfectly fine with a smaller dog I could use as emotional support and medication reminders. A true service dog for me would have to be at least 65 lbs, and I’m not sure I want that large a dog.

I would definitely want one if we were doing the service classes together, so that answers that. Tony Lanagan is a pit bull, and I know that because it’s the breed that’s recommended for me. I’ll want to start my dog off right, so if Bryn was willing it would be great to have her with us for a few weeks in the beginning. She’s a professional dog trainer and could at least get me up and running with house training.

But again, budgeting. I need to know where I am before I can know where I’m going.

But slowly, Tony will become a Lanagan, too. He’ll learn all the things about me that make me tick, all my secrets because that’s what dogs do- they hold the secrets of your universe that you’re not ready to tell anyone else. You can thank them for their emotional labor with Beggin’ Strips.

I need a dog to lick my face when I cry.

Fish

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What animals make the best/worst pets?
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My life has been taken over by the cold virus. There is nothing anyone can do, because I am not bad off enough to do anything but complain. I hurt all over and there is Vick’s VapoRub on my chest. I could stop most of the complaining with a hot shower, so that is where I’m headed once you find out that I like keeping animals in water as decoration and because I crave taking care of something that doesn’t need me too much. I am saving that kind of love and attention for my service dog. It seems unfair to get a small dog or cat knowing they’re a placeholder for another animal. My sister and I have talked about all kinds of things, from a turtle to a betta fish. It’s all I have time to do, look.

I have a shower curtain with a turtle on it, and right now that is pet enough. That being said………….

The best day of my little autistic life was receiving Othello, my Black Moor goldfish, when I was nine. The worst day is learning that you are not rescuing a goldfish by putting it in a bowl. They grow quickly, and they basically fold in on themselves; their guts twist to accommodate being a big fish in a small pond. Now, I will not keep goldfish at all, because there is no place to return or dump them when they get too big for your setup. Ohio Fish Rescue does not have enough room for everybody on earth’s failings as a pet owner, so buy smart. I’m thinking a small community aquarium, even at five gallons. That is plenty enough for a betta fish, his plants, and his cleaning crew. Males are flashy, so I want a boy living in my house (in this case).

I’m going to be buying smart because my service dog is a big investment, and I have three women telling me that I need a pet (well, Supergrover said I needed a dog and a gun… while I appreciate the sentiment, she’s the trained shot and I cannot hit the broad side of a barn – mental illness says “don’t tempt me into holding my beer” even with training)….

“I know me. We’ve met.” -Matt Borum, circa 2003

Fish seem to be the best answer for now. I do not want a cat because I will not clean up after it. I will buy disposable litter boxes and throw them out every day because I hate the smell so much I will throw up. I am a strong enough man to admit that while I love cats, the sensory experience of cleaning a litter box is for someone who lives with me that owns a cat. I’m not capable. I say this because my sister said, “why don’t you get a cat?” I had to explain to her that Dana took pity on me long ago and let me trade out cleaning the cat box for other chores…. but not until she saw actual vomit on the cat shit. Therefore, I do not want to go back to disposable litter boxes and hoping that another girlfriend sees me for the pathetic cat owner I am. To me, solving the problem is not air freshener or a magic litter box that doesn’t have a smell, because they don’t exist.

The solution is not getting a cat.

This is why my Serbian housemate’s cat was such a problem to me. She was allowed to keep a cat in her room. Periodt. But she liked going to Serbia, and she told my landlady that when she was gone, the cat was my responsibility. She was going to leave for a month and just not tell me. No one in our house would have let a cat die, but it was a shitty thing for an owner to do.

I have enough trouble taking care of my own problems, but today has been a victory. Evey Winters, writer and advocate, said she’d work with me to bring The Sinners’ Table to life. She’s the first trans person I followed on my professional account, and she lives an hour from me.

Life is strange. You come up with an idea in 2024, but it takes flight when it has permission to breathe. Someone slighted me, and The Sinners’ Table was the answer. Everyone is a traitor to something, most often themselves. Find community. Find love where you think it isn’t.

Peer support from actual peers. The one who will do Lent with you instead of just Easter. In the end, it’s all fish.

To All the Pets I’ve Loved Before

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

What is your favorite animal?

Interestingly enough, I cannot tell you the exact date that the last time this prompt appeared. I can only tell you that it was the day I got together with Lindsay to discuss ideas for Matt’s Christmas present. She didn’t know what the hell to tell me, because our men are hard to buy for- Dad, Zac, and Matt- because when they like things, they just get them. So, I bought Matt two things I knew he probably wouldn’t think to buy for himself….. they were on his Wish List, but I can’t imagine that these were necessary purchases….. just cool. Because of my history with the sport, I got him the soccer ball he wanted (I figured a soccer ball is a gift that should come from me, frankly. Matt knows more about the sport, but I know more about the players (I’m guessing). Oh, and I didn’t even know he was a Weezer fan, but I got him “The Blue Album” on vinyl. That’s a gift that should come from me as well, because they’re my favorite band of all time.

There’s no better feeling than a nice stretch of highway and “Dope Nose” blaring like “Peter Gunn” at 70mph.

But the reason I bring up Lindsay and Matt is that today is the same writing prompt, and Lindsay and I are going out for dinner….. again. This prompt is now an omen, so I’m going to keep praying for it. 😉

I said, “it seems to me that you’re in DC a lot more often now. Is that true?” She said “yes,” so I’m looking forward to seeing more of her as time allows. She’s not always free enough to get together, but when she is, it’s a blast.

When I first moved here, this was all a projection on my part and I was right. Lindsay and Matt are involved in politics on many levels, so it was not inconceivable that they’d both end up here. In the 2016 election, if Pete Buttigieg had won, Lindsay would have gotten a job in his administration because it pays to have old, old friends/bosses who are also behind the scenes. Lindsay basically ran Annise Parker’s campaign after Peter Brown lost (we love you, Pete…. rest in peace). When she won, Annise put her in Constituent Services and later “body man,” like Charlie in “The West Wing.” Then, Annise ran Pete’s campaign; I’ve never been more sorry that anyone didn’t get the nomination, because it affected me so personally and to me, Pete was “the guy,” like they talk about with Bartlett. He has it, man. But, of course, I am incredibly biased. He’s military intelligence, so I was literally obsessed with him on multiple levels.

What I have to say about Lindsay ending up here is………. sort of. I know for sure that I see Lindsay more now than I ever did in Houston, because her whole life is there. When she’s here, she’s not balancing a million different friends and their needs as well. After work, she’s all mine. Jill would be proud to know that we’ve been very responsible and no communities have been built…. and she’s an e-mail subscriber so I know this will immediately go to her desk. 😉 But, in all of this, there are drawbacks for me because Lindsay and I have a different form of ADHD. Mine is combined with Autism, hers isn’t.

Therefore, her brain is designed to think about and manage a million thoughts at once, because her brain is bursting with creativity and she can retain that information. My autism makes it where I cannot handle a million details nor remember them; I get so frustrated because I want to drill down into policy just as bad. I just don’t understand as fast when Lindsay is doing it by talking.

I have to transcribe a conversation to understand it, because I take in most everything through sight. It’s why I don’t get clarity on a subject until I’ve witnessed something and written it down. It makes me know that I am accurate in guessing what neurotypical people would do, but struggle to imitate it and make it feel natural. That’s what makes autistic people feel like aliens, and why “Resident Alien” is one of my favorite TV shows, because Alan Tudyk’s character, whether it’s his alien tendencies or human, is coded as autistic and really funny about it. But because I due process information through reading, it makes me shy when Lindsay takes me along to events where other important people are also there.

I am not a fan of the rarefied air in which she walks, and not because I don’t want to meet people like Kamala. It’s because I don’t pick up social cues well and I don’t want to make a mistake that Lindsay can’t recover from, like me getting on my high horse about something (politics is part of my intelligence special interest…….. love, love, love Karl Rove and not because I agree with any of his bullshit. He’s just the anti-Carville and I admire his “strategery.” Democrats could learn MUCH, but they won’t.). Her career is so important to both of us. It shouldn’t be about me and my behavior, but it comes with the territory.

Here’s a recent conversation (Lindsay and Kamala have known each other since the campaign trail. They’ve met…..):

Lindsay: I have a meeting with Kamala.

Leslie: I will give you five dollars if you walk up to her and say, “my sister lives in DC and she wants to know if you want to hang out.”

Lindsay: She’s a politician. Of course she’ll say yes.

Dead.

This is what comes up for me when I think about the last entry that I wrote about Kevin, the giraffe I loved at the National Zoo and who does not live here anymore.

But what comes up for me now is that with all the things I struggle with in my daily life, the only being I’ve ever told is Oliver.

Who is a dog.

Well, There’s Kevin

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

You remember Kevin, right? 😉

Kevin, who is a giraffe, used to live at the DC zoo. I do not know when he moved, but I do know that he has. The last time I went to the National Zoo, the keepers told me they’d gotten rid of all their giraffes…. like the entire enclosure is now something else. I was heartbroken, because I went to the zoo that day to get a picture of Kevin for you guys, actually. I believe I brought back pictures of a tiny bear instead.

Here’s a shot I took last night I love- it’s of the kitchen at Zaytinya.

I got to the restaurant a little early, so I grabbed this shot while I was sitting at the edge of the bar and I thought no one was looking. The caption on Facebook is “you have no idea how much I feel this picture in my muscles.”

There were no wild animals except Lindsay and me involved, and we are not actually that wild anymore….. not that we ever really were to begin with. Lindsay was in a couple of rock bands before she went into politics, but that’s about the extent of it. I’ve been 46 since I was nine. We had some drinks and caught up, and didn’t actually talk about why I wanted to talk to her in the first place because we had a thousand topics to cover and there’s always the phone.

In some ways, I wish Lindsay’s dinner hadn’t gotten moved to last night, because it would have been fun to spend Finnish Independence Day with her. It’s only 0730, and I’m trying to make the best of it. Finnish Independence Day is joyous….. for the Finns, and I feel like I’m stealing it for myself through the cunning use of YouTube. It’s a thing I came up with when I didn’t want a date to be a thing anymore, so I don’t acknowledge it out loud.

But I can say to Bryn later, “now that Finnish Independence Day is over, we can start decorating for Christmas” and she will get the most evil smirk on her face. God, I love that woman. Mostly because she’d be the only one in my life to know exactly how far back that paraphrase goes. Because, you see, she does not have to paraphrase. The reason I love Bryn is that I never need to paraphrase anything, because if I’d bother, she would say the thing I was trying to say the whole way through. It’s good to have a friend who’s as no-bullshit as I am, from the same viewpoint. It’s one thing to listen and shut someone down. It’s quite another to open up to someone and having them say “speak more to that.”

Wait a minute. Speak more? No one ever tells me that. 😉

With Bryn it’s always “how dare you make me feel my feelings.” And it feels so much better than keeping everything in. We lost a mutual friend recently (that I knew peripherally, but she and the rest of her family knew very, very well) and I hope that I am being respectful of her space, and also holding space for her. I will check in later, but I don’t hover when people are in grief because I tended to retreat. Not everyone is like that, but I do what I know. What I know is that the most powerful thing I can do is listen. I also know that people need support in grief longer than society usually allows. So, I’ll keep checking back in on her, but I also recognize not to smother mother, either. 😉

Maybe later today, I’ll catch her curled up with Pippi, who is a dog.

No Stairway (to Kevin)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am really bummed out. The National Zoo does not have giraffes anymore. Therefore, wherever Kevin the giraffe may be, it’s not DC. I didn’t stay very long- that’s the nice thing about Smithsonians. You don’t need to spend all day there to get your money’s worth. The cutest thing I saw was a sloth bear, because he was just trying so hard to make it up a staircase and the staircase just seemed angry. The snake was just funny…. slithering on the main trail like it was a lost tourist…. similar to the other crowd around me. This is the last Friday of school, and it seems like every kid in the nation bumped into me today.

I just love the neighborhood, though. It would be amazing to live on the main drag, Connecticut between Adams Morgan and Cleveland Park. Those houses are as small as condos and about four million dollars, and yet, it’s cool to think about living in the middle of the city…. until I’ve been there all day. I’m so glad I live in Silver Spring.

That sloth bear is actual footage of me walking around DC.

Observations

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Zac’s office is just big enough for the two of us. He’s working at home after working at work. I’m sitting behind him on a futon with Oliver, the dog, at my feet. The plan is to go out for Korean fried chicken, because I’d seen it on YouTube and Zac remembers stuff. Dooce’s death is rattling in my head, and I needed to be with other people. It wasn’t planned this way. It just is. The randomness of needing Zac close and already having had something planned weeks in advance is the silver lining on this cloud. I don’t have to grieve by myself if I don’t want to, and I also don’t have to talk about it at all. He’s just here in all his redheaded brilliance for whatever it is that I need.

I love these simple moments, where we can be in companionable silence. All I hear is the rhythm of two people typing, and it’s better than a white noise album. It reminds me of other times I’ve been in grief. I didn’t need anyone to say anything. I just needed another presence in the room.

If I had to pick one thing that I miss about being married, it’s being able to have someone around all the time. I don’t care what we’re doing. Just having that person you can be quiet with is enough. I just get caught up on the idea of someone living with me again. I have to think long and hard about what I want my life to look like, because most of my friends are extroverts because I realize that someone needs to drag me out of the house.

I find that most of the time, I am my own best company because I’m internally driven to write. I am irritating as fuck to live with sometimes, because I’m a lot. A lot. I sometimes feel like I’m protecting people from me, because my relationships have gone two ways. If I’m with someone neurotypical, they don’t understand. Living with someone who doesn’t get it is bad.

Living with someone who does is worse. If you both have mental health issues, it’s a lot to be a partner. You have to work so much harder to keep yourselves strong so you don’t get your crazy spatter on each other. Living with someone who does have mental health issues but can’t be arsed to go to the doctor is the worst kind of punishment. The fights hurt so much more because there’s too little serotonin in the room. You descend into each other’s madness, but can rarely see outside the situation.

Deciding to be with someone who also deals with mental disorders and/or alcoholism vs. someone who’s never struggled with depression at all is a huge decision. I have had neurotypical people reject me because I’m too much within weeks. I have a cavernous inner landscape, and asking someone to share it with me is frightening. Neurotypical people resent the hell out of the neurodivergent because they have no frame of reference for our moods and behaviors…. and even then, they’re human. If we are irritated with our own illnesses, God help the person who tries to help us. Our brains are trying to tell us that we’re too much for everyone. That no one needs us because we’re too much. It’s depression’s main playbook, and it works too much of the time.

It’s hard not having that person who comes with me to doctor’s appointments so we can debrief what new meds might do, etc. Having my partner actually present to hear what the doctor says is important to me, because repetition is essential to retaining information. The other person also might remember something I missed. Being responsible or my own health is exhausting, I don’t need someone to fix me, I need someone to empathize with me, or sympathize as the case may be.

Giving someone that power is equally dubious in my mind. I trusted Daniel because he was the military equivalent of an NP. I didn’t want to put all my stuff on someone who couldn’t attribute behaviors to my personality when they were my disease, and be able to know the difference.

It is my job to keep myself strong, I just miss support in doing so…. the equivalent of getting a lollipop after a shot or a kiss on a bruised knee.

What I don’t want is for someone to jump into a relationship with me so fast that they don’t have time to take in the whole picture. This has been problematic because I am also trying to meet other people, and they seem to be so bent out of shape that I’m dating someone else, as if we should be married on the first date. It doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of monogamy or commitment. They just don’t know me well enough to have that discussion after one conversation. Zac is one of my best friends. Why would I tell him I didn’t want to date anymore because I’ve known someone new for five minutes and she already expects for there to be no one else? It just seems crazy to me on both sides. I can’t count on emotional support from people I don’t know well. I also don’t lie or play games. I will tell you the truth, whether you like it or not. You cannot imagine how long I was alone, blaming myself for anything and everything I possibly could. Denying myself a full spectrum of emotions because I’d caused emotional devastation in my wake when I was sick.

I also don’t give myself any slack when it comes to being sick. Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean your reactions don’t matter. What matters is whether we can adapt to each other’s quirks, or whether they are so incompatible that it creates more problems than it solves.

I had to give up caring that I’d find my forever person, because that would take so long to build. I wanted something manageable, to be able to date someone that wouldn’t put restrictions on what I could and couldn’t do because we aren’t building a future together and compromising all the time. I just get to sit here and watch him be cute.

But while I’m sitting here watching, I’m not thinking about defining anything but this moment. If there is a future being built here, it’s having a friend that accepts me for who I am, and wants to be in my life at whatever level works best for both of us.

Now Oliver is snoring and kicking his feet, and I am subconsciously competing with Zac to see who types faster. Every minute, someone else is winning. I love that, because the sound of someone playing a mechanical keyboard is one of the most beautiful sounds on earth when they’re good at it.

As soon as I finished that paragraph, Zac was finished working and we headed out to the park behind his house with Oliver. If I lived in the ‘burbs of Virginia, I think I would get isolated over time, but there is nothing like having hiking trails very near your backyard. Zac has also promised me a trip to Great Falls, because I was lamenting how much I missed driving out The Gorge. Some of my favorite memories are hiking alone and with friends. Hiking alone is a totally different pace, because I’m me and need to take pictures every 50 feet. With Zac and Oliver, I hang all right, but we move faster.

I’m actually writing this from the Woodley Park-Zoo area Starbucks because hiking last night reminded me that the zoo is the best place to work for me, because the animals are the perfect background noise. What I did not take into account is that it is really, really hot right now. So I stopped in for a second cup of coffee and the ability to write in the air conditioning.

I’m having a grande cafe misto (cafe au lait) with an extra shot and four Splenda. Sometimes that’s called a red eye or a wizard jump. It’s my favorite thing on earth because it’s not candy. There’s real coffee in there somewhere. In fact, it was funny. I got off the metro and looked around for the gayest twink I could find because if there was a good coffee shop around, he’d know where it was. I said, “do you live in this neighborhood?” When he said yes, I said, “is there a good coffee shop around here…. or a Starbucks?” He laughed and gave me directions.

Starbucks is okay. The coffee tastes better with steamed milk and sweetener because it’s sort of bitter. I just prefer trying local brands, and rely on Starbucks when I flat need a cup of coffee and it’s getting serious. They’re everywhere…. and because I live so far away from some of my family and friends, the ones who know I like coffee make it possible to come here a lot, because digital Starbucks money is stupid easy to send for Christmas.

I also like my coffee ratio better than Starbucks, so if I have a large enough gift card, I’ll buy the beans I like by the bag instead of using it for multiple outings. Komodo Dragon and Caffe Verona are my favorite, because I like a coffee that can stand up to fat. They are big, bold roasts. I wish they didn’t have a flavor graveyard, because I wish that Indivisible and Morning Joe were still available.

I just love coffee shops in general because of the ’90s vibe. Starbuck’s has modernized, but plenty of shops are still retro. If you walk in and there’s some sort of lesbian music playing, you’re in the right place.

I don’t even have to define “lesbian music.” There’s a reason I didn’t listen to Indigo Girls in public for the longest because I thought to myself, “I look gay enough.”

But that relaxed vibe of a bar with drinks I’d rather have? Priceless. Yes, cocktails are delicious. But there’s an intimacy to drinking coffee and tea together. It’s the tiniest sacred ritual that exists. What is it about coffee and tea that makes us just as vulnerable as drinking beer or cocktails? Maybe it’s different for extroverts, but to me, drinking coffee together at one of those places that has mismatched couches and tables in an invitation for conversation to go deeper. It’s the feeling of the mug in your hand, the lighting of the early morning or late at night…. the acidity of the coffee and the sweetness of the milk… a type of communion that honors each other rather than a higher power.

I even feel that connection with the people who are sitting next to me, and they just got here.

In a bit, I’ll be leaving. I need to go and visit Kevin (what I call my favorite giraffe. I can’t be arsed to actually ask its name). We haven’t talked since last year. There are tables and benches that are very comfortable, vending machines so that you can get stuff even when the zoo is closed, and the comfort of feeling like the park itself is your own habitat/enclosure. You look around and see so much green…. and it’s an actual, working park because it doesn’t really close. People jog through all the time.

I can be focused and calm while also enjoying the outdoors. Kevin doesn’t mind if I work while we’re talking. He is also doing his own thing. When I need interaction and companionable silence, both Zac and Kevin are excellent choices.

Especially if I’ve had coffee.